STAY IN YOUR COMFORT ZONE THIS CINEFEST SEASON!

Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival is ready to kick off another edition, pandemic style! The festival kicks of Sept 19th – 27th and while in the past film lovers have headed to Silvercity in droves to check out the years film offerings things will be a little different this year. Get ready to enjoy probably the most FLEXIBLE and RELAXING festival experience there has ever been! With the all-new Virtual Pass you can enjoy all the festival programming at home and on your own schedule. No need to worry about missing out on the action during snack breaks or having to choose between overlapping showtimes. Still want to get that in-theatre experience? There will be a selection of 25 in-person presentations at Silvercity throughout the festival as well.

Right now you can get tickets for individual film screenings for $10 or a full virtual pass for just $100. Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival runs September 19^th -27^th on your nearest internet-connected devise! For more information on this year’s festival head to www.cinefest.com. There are a lot of amazing films to sift through this year so to get you started here are a few that we’ll be checking out.

Akilla’s Escape

Directed by Charles Officer • 2020 • Canada/USA

Cast: Saul Williams, Thamela Mpumlwana, Donisha Prendergast, Shomari Downer, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Olunike Adelyi

In the spirit of The Iliad by Homer, we chronicle the politics of violence, the humanity that is destroyed, and what is worth fighting for. Akilla’s Escape weaves the present and past in a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier. Set in Toronto and New York where over 450,000 Jamaicans reside, the film speaks to the historical criminalization of black boys that modern society overlooks. Akilla Brown (Williams) is forty-years-old and for the first time in his life, the clandestine cannabis grow operation he runs is legit. Only one year into government approved legalization, the pendulum of hypocrisy takes a toll and Akilla decides to cash out. While making a routine delivery on a cool, summer night, destiny takes an unexpected turn when Akilla confronts a firestorm of masked youths in an armed robbery.  In the aftermath of the heist, Akilla captures one of the thieves, a mute fifteen-year-old boy named Sheppard (Mpumlwana). Upon learning the bandits are affiliated with the Garrison Army, a Jamaican crime syndicate his grandfather founded. Akilla is forced to reckon with a cycle of violence he thought he escaped. 

Black Bear

Directed by Lawrence Michael Levine • 2020 • USA

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, Sarah Gadon

At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously convoluted their lives will soon become in the filmmaker’s pursuit of a work of art, which blurs the boundaries between autobiography and invention. The lives and sentiments of three artists interlock and are pushed to provocative limits in this enthralling drama that rejoices in subverting expectations and exploring the layers of a fragmented world.

Bone Cage

Directed by Taylor Olson • 2020 • Canada

Cast: Taylor Olson, Amy Groening, Sam Vigneault, Ursula Calder

Jamie (Olson) works operating a wood processor, clear-cutting for pulp. At the end of each shift, he walks through the destruction he has created looking for injured animals and rescues those he can. Jamie’s desire to break free from this world is thwarted by the very environment he’s trying to escape. Bone Cage examines how young people in rural communities, employed in the destruction of their environment, treat the people they love at the end of their shift. Bone Cage is director and lead actor Taylor Olson’s feature film directorial debut.

For the Sake of Vicious

Directed by Gabriel Carrer & Reese Eveneshen • 2020 • Canada

Cast: Lora Burke, Nick Smyth, Colin Paradine, James Fler

A nurse and single mother returns home from a late shift on Halloween to find a maniac hiding out with a hostage in her home. As a wave of violent intruders descend upon the neighborhood and lay siege, the nurse soon realizes the only way out of the situation is to become as violent as everyone else.

Girl

Directed by Chad Faust • 2020 • USA

Cast: Bella Thorne, Chad Faust, Elizabeth Saunders, Mickey Rourke

Girl (Thorne) is 22 and has spent the entirety of her youth taking care of her sick mother, Mama (Saunders), who fled their small oil town to protect them from Girl’s dangerous father. A tomboy, Girl has grown up hearing the horrendous stories about her dad, which have been backed by his actions over the years as he tried to hunt down Girl and Mama and ruin their lives. Now she’s had enough. She’s going to put an end to it, on her own terms. Armed with her hatchet, she takes the bus to the small town where she was born, intent on killing him—only to discover… someone very recently beat her to the task. But who? And why? As Girl searches for answers, she uncovers a family legacy more dangerous than she’d imagined. Girl was filmed in Greater Sudbury.

Happy Place

Directed by Helen Shaver • 2020 • Canada

Cast: Clark Backo, Marie-Eve Perron, Tara Rosling, Liisa Repo-Martell, Pamela Mala Sinha, Sheila McCarthy, Mary Walsh

Happy Place explores the time a group of women spend together in an in-patient care facility. The women have only one thing in common: they have all attempted suicide. Samira’s (Backo) attempt stems from PTSD after a violent sexual assault several years earlier, and her fellow residents – sophisticated Celine (Perron), ribald Mildred (Walsh), guarded Rosemary (Sinha), vulnerable Nina (Repo-Martell), and competitive Joyce (McCarthy) – have personal stories that intersect with her own. Trying to lead them all to some form of healing is psychiatrist Louise (Rosling), who holds the centre of this diverse and kinetic group. Some of the women will leave the safety of the clinic, for better or worse, and others will stay, hopefully learning to find a way to exist alongside their pain.

Hazy Little Thing

Directed by Sam Coyle • 2020 • Canada

Cast: Erin Margurite Carter, Dayle McLeod, Emily Coutts, Jade Hassouné, Surpinder Wraich

A trip through social media, depression and psychedelics. Billie (Carter) is a writer, blocked in the wake of one semi-famous novel she wrote years ago. Hazy Little Thing follows Billie through a birthday weekend full of friends and family rushing to her ‘rescue’ after she accidentally threatens suicide on social media. Hazy Little Thing is the debut feature film of Canadian director Sam Coyle.

I Am Greta

Directed by Nathan Grossman • 2020 • Sweden

In August of 2018, Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden starts a school strike for the climate. Her question for adults: if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolves into a global movement. Greta, a quiet Swedish girl on the autism spectrum, becomes a world famous activist. The team behind I Am Greta has been following the young activist from her early school strike in Stockholm all the way to parliaments and massive international protests, documenting her mission to make the world understand the urgency of the climate crisis.

Parallel Minds

Directed by Benjamin Ross Hayden • 2019 • Canada

Cast: Tommie-Amber Pirie, Greg Bryk, Madison Walsh, Wilma Pelly, Michelle Thrush

In the near future, technology firm Red-Eye is on the verge of developing a revolutionary contact lens that records human sight to replicate memories. The device uses an artificially engineered intelligence known as U.R.M. When the company’s lead researcher is strangely murdered at the time of the technology’s release, Thomas Elliot (Bryk), an old-fashioned police detective investigates with intrepid researcher Margo Elson (Pirie) who are drawn into searching deeper to apprehend the illusive digital shapeshifter. Both soon are terrifyingly threatened by memories of their past the deeper they continue to seek in uncovering what this dangerous artificial intelligence is trying to consume. Parallel Minds is a captivating Indigenous futurist tale.

Spare Parts

Directed by Andrew Thomas Hunt • 2020 • Canada

Cast: Julian Richings, Michelle Argyris, Emily Alatalo, Jason Rouse, Kiriana Stanton

In a godforsaken bar in the middle of nowhere, an all-female rock band, Ms. 45, rip the stage apart with their punk spirit and defiance of the rowdy male crowd. Their performance impresses an enthusiastic fan who lures the girls into a trap, sedates them, and starts customizing them. The four wake up with weapons for limbs to fight gladiator-style, in an arena-style auto-wrecking yard for the amusement of the Emperor (Richings) and his sadistic townsfolk. The women must now truly band together and use all of their talents if they’re going to get out alive. Spare Parts was filmed in Greater Sudbury and surrounding areas.